What is Hospitality? Noah Webster calls it, “The act or practice of receiving and entertaining strangers or guests without reward, or with kind and generous liberality.” Hospitality could be described as opening your hearts and home to strangers and making them friends. It is planning to have our lives overlap. It is an intentional investment in friendship.
God requires elders to be hospitable and encourages all the people of God to open their hearts and homes to others. We read in Titus 1:7 “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.” All Christians are exhorted to show hospitality. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2), and “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:9-10).
Opening your heart and home to others and sharing your time with them is a duty but also a delight. When you aim to bless others you often receive a blessing in return. Generosity produces friendship. “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered” (Proverbs 11:24-25). Serving others with generosity can deepen friendships. “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24). “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17). The main thing that stifles a growing friendship is space and time. Hospitality is intentionally being in the same place at the same time. This is the soil that grows deep friendships and multiplies Christian companions.
Hospitality strengthens the bonds within the church fellowship. Making and deepening Christian friendship is a vital necessity in the congregation. Some leave the church because they have no friends. Within the body, the same source of life and strength must flow to all the members of the body. All our members should be “in circulation.” One long harsh winter in Michigan my father was snow-blowing his driveway. It was thick, heavy snow and the snowblower blades would often stop spinning. My dad reached in and freed the blades. And the blades freed my father of the tips of three fingers. Off to the hospital, my dad said, “Quickly get the fingers.” They were still in the snow gloves. Sadly, The doctors could not reattach the tips of the fingers. My question is, what happened to those tips of three fingers when they were detached from the body? Well, they grew a whole new body! Or perhaps they thrived in their new environment because they had so much freedom. Nope. They died. When you separate yourself from the life of the body of Christ, you die. When parts of the body are cut off from circulation, they die. Hospitality keeps the sun shining and the snow away so that you do not need to reach into the snowblower and lose your fingers.
The Bible assumes that the people of God will often be together. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25). What are some practical suggestions for showing hospitality? Invite others over for games or to watch a movie. Meet someone for lunch and talk. Send flowers or a card to one who is ill. Visit the widows and the sick. Invite another family to the park for a picnic with all the kids. Welcome someone over for a meal after church. As our lives overlap we are bound together with the cords of love. Therefore, let us “show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”